


Breaking the Girl

by walkthatlonesomevalley



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 21:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3585309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthatlonesomevalley/pseuds/walkthatlonesomevalley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Karma receives unexpected internet fame Amy decides it's time to try and remove herself from Karma's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Girl

**Author's Note:**

> *i don't usually take prompts but this was a request from lazarusgirl and lazarusgirl really deserves to have her wishes granted because she's great*

Breaking the Girl

Part I

It's dark in her room but she sits in her chair and stares ahead at the old video she had forgotten she made.

When she pressed on it, and it started up, it definitely startled her.

There was a shaky noise, her hand brushing the side of a video camera as she propped it up and framed Karma perfectly to get ready for their very first shoot.

"Do I look okay?"

"You look great," she heard her own voice relent. Even now she knew she had been smiling behind the camera, smiling at her beautiful friend. Her friend who cared that she found her attractive. Her friend who couldn't really trust anyone, who wasn't her, to say that and feel it, with every fiber of their aching life.

Home alone now, Amy watched and her feelings stirred. In the screen, Karma visibly blushed after her comment and let out a shaky breath.

At the time, Amy had missed that. But it had happened, and in her room where she now sat alone. DP Amy was a serious gal. She'd been too busy then trying to make things perfect. Too busy to notice all those feelings fluttering up in Karma and threatening to overtake her, those feelings that were now fully there though Amy still did not really know.

The videos? That was Karma's dream then, and Amy had wanted it all to be perfect.

"What do you think about the lighting?" Amy asked.

As she watched this it began to stress her out. She'd been trying for so long to throw water on the unavoidable heat she felt for Karma but no matter what she did and no matter how OUT OF HER LIFE she made herself be, Amy only felt flames when she thought of her, hazy fragrant smoke and roaring burning flames that just grew and grew causing billowing clouds of confusion amongst their steady burn.

"It looks good," Karma said sweetly. She was fixing her shirt in the camera, seeing herself on the screen.

"Okay," Amy said. "Ready when you are!" She gave her a signal.

And that's how it all started. That's how it all began.

A knock came at the door and Amy quickly silenced Karma's voice on her screen.

"Hey you," Lauren said, entering. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Not much," Amy sighed, swiveling in her chair to greet a human, a living person. Those were rare nowadays... She hadn't just been avoiding Karma. She'd been avoiding everyone. Life didn't seem to be bringing her much joy.

"Oh…" Lauren said, noticing the screen behind Amy, the one that had Karma on it, old Karma, Amy's Karma.

"Yeah… Forgot I made that," Amy said. Usually she deleted the beginnings of the videos. None of that was necessary. But the way Karma looked at her in that one… That must've been why she saved it, and she knew that now.

Amy was off screen for most of the thing but you could clearly see Karma looking towards her, adoring her in the off moments when Amy wasn't paying attention to her at all.

Affected, Amy wiped her face with both hands and moved over to the bed, lying down on her back near Lauren who was just perched up on the bed with crossed legs and her hair in a messy bun.

Summer had been a mess of leisure for the both of them. For Amy, free time simply meant wallowing alone.

"You need to talk to her," Lauren poked.

"I can't," Amy said.

One day, life with Karma, it had all just been too much. Neither of them were seeing other people. Neither of them were happy about that.

It was too much to be with Karma like that all the time without talking about it… Amy didn't really expect anyone else to understand.

"Someday…" Lauren said, knowingly… She'd been watching Karma's videos, post-Amy. They'd been getting increasingly more depressing, increasingly more intense. More real.

Amy didn't know about all that. Up until now, Amy had been avoiding Karma's channel. Avoiding the show.

It did feel like a show.

When it started, it was innocent. It was another thing that was just theirs.

But now?

It was a circus.

Amy couldn't. She couldn't watch more people fall in love with Karma and threaten to take her away. She'd rather just give up, wash her hands of it. She was too in love with her. It was too hard.

Wasn't it bad enough that she was already this off-screen no one? She already felt like she wasn't good enough and didn't mean enough. What could she mean?

I mean, it wasn't even like Amy to be thinking about those things or caring about those things. But she thought of them now. And she did care because no matter how she tried, she still wanted to be Karma's person. That's why she'd been staying away.

Either way, her plan had failed.

She loved Karma.

She could never wash her hands of her… Not in the way she had hoped anyway.

"Well… I know you haven't been watching. And since it's summer, I know you haven't seen her at all lately but… She seems sad Amy…" Lauren and Shane had been talking about it a lot since they'd been taking the same yoga class on weekday mornings. Everyone watched Karma's videos. Everyone was proud to know someone who could sing like that, play guitar as if it were nothing, and bare their soul, no matter how cliché that all was, or how questionable her actions had been in the morals department when she was younger a few years back.

But, to be honest, that's not even why the pair of them watched. The pair of them had been watching Karma and Amy for years now, simply years. It wasn't about wanting to know someone famous. It was about already knowing too much… Seeing too much.

The videos added a new layer of intrigue to things. Especially now.

And the fact that Amy couldn't watch?

Lauren and Shane flipped-out together, in secret. They even had an out-of-character 8pm coffee date to try and scheme a way to get those two girls in the same room after having seen a very telling video of Karma's, a video that just showed that she was in love.

Since that very first video after their fight, Lauren and Shane were convinced that almost all the videos seemed to obviously be about Amy or for Amy.

But Amy wasn't watching.

Amy couldn't know.

"I wish it was easy," Amy said. The need to leave had come at a very random time. Karma's covers had gotten a lot of attention. Every video she posted seemed to get more hit counts than the one before.

She was internet famous.

Fine.

"I know it seems complicated but it might just be simple," Lauren said, speaking in code. Anyone who had known Karma would see the change in her. "Maybe time helped her realize some things…" Lauren pushed.

"You sound crazy," Amy smiled, teasing her.

All those comments… Up until a month ago, Amy had been moderating them, reading them, flagging the hurtful ones. There were so many people in love with Karma Ashcroft…

And Amy felt that. She always did. All her days and nights before the break... They had all been dedicated to Karma.

And yeah, Karma had been with her too but at least she got some time to herself, some time to just breathe.

When Amy wasn't filming Karma, she was watching her.

She filmed her videos, edited her videos, polished the sound, uploaded everything. She was with her all the time, even when she wasn't. And that just wasn't healthy.

Karma knew how to do things, she could learn, but Karma had insisted that Amy did everything better than her.

The song that broke Amy, broke them, had been so fucking simple.

It was a stupid song. She didn't know why Karma liked it but she herself hated it and wanted it to never see the light of day. And all because of some stupid memory of Karma and Liam. One that Karma wasn't even aware of. One that wouldn't even ring a bell if Amy HAD mentioned it to her and sort of thrown it in her face.

Once Amy saw that Karma went against her own wishes and filmed that damn thing on her cellphone and posted it all beautiful and sloppy without any embellishments, that was the end, the last straw.

It was that thing again.

A slap in the face.

Amy was wrong to freak out but she just needed a reason. That's all she needed to try the thing she'd been meaning to try.

A song specifically about loving a boy?

It was a sign. Karma didn't need her.

Karma never needed her.

And what with the fame? Karma was set now. She could distract herself. Be without. At least for a little while.

But, that didn't change the one fact that kept somehow escaping Amy in her weak moments as well as her strong. Karma may not have needed her but she wanted her more than anyone else. She'd always wanted Amy. Always, always, always. First and foremost, Amy had always been her constant, her rock.

Karma wanted her so much it often confused her. She wanted her so much she didn't even know what it was about her she wanted. She wanted everything. All of it. All the time. Always Amy.

The only time when she ever questioned that wanting was when Amy was away. That was the only time she had to sit on it, think on it, dwell on it, and see inside.

Part II

The fight had been petty. The video was an excuse for a fight.

"You're so obsessed with yourself Karma," Amy had spat.

Even now, when silence seemed to fill up her lonely living space, she heard her own stupid voice saying her own stupid words in her head.

Across town in her room, Karma had taken to trying not to care.

Every time she tried, it only hurt more later.

Right now she needed to just wallow in it. It seemed there was never anything she could do.

Amy wouldn't see her. Amy wouldn't answer her calls. Amy even called the police once to get her to leave when she was knocking at her door.

It was cruel.

The wrong way to deal with things.

A crying Karma didn't deserve to be shut out like that.

Karma would never do that to Amy. She just never would.

But Amy couldn't stop. She couldn't stop feeling like a footnote in Karma's life. And she needed to stop feeling that all the time. She needed that gone.

Karma could never understand it. Amy was everything to her. She just was.

When Amy left? None of her world seemed to matter.

Part III

On a particularly rough night two weeks into their fight when Karma was reeeeally missing Amy, she posted a slowed down version of her original song for her, Please Don't Pull Away.

That had been the red flag for Shane, the starting point to a major shift in Karma's brain. Most girls don't write songs like that about their best friends. And most girls don't obsess about their best friends more than their ex James Dean type boyfriends. But all Karma seemed to be able to do was think about Amy. Come to think of it, all she ever did ever was think about Amy. Unless she was with her, then she thought of other things. It was all rather backwards.

At least, that's what Shane saw when he watched her over the years, especially now.

He used to have a problem with her. She seemed manipulative or who knows, maybe just squirrely. But the more he watched her fall apart over the years the more he started to understand that even she didn't know what she was feeling or doing or thinking.

"Karma?"

Shit... Karma thought. She'd been in hideout mode lately. Without Amy it was all a pointless mess anyway. Her videos had become darker. Her mood had pretty much plummeted. Amy took that sparkle from her eye when she left and people like Lauren and Shane noticed these little things.

Since Amy sort of broke up with her, Karma slept a lot, worried a lot, hated herself, and blamed herself.

"Hey," Karma said, greeting him and allowing him to pull her in for a hug.

She didn't even know she needed that, but she did.

"Where have you been?!" Shane joked, trying to keep it light. He knew she'd be there. Karma always brought her guitar with her to Cafe Cafe in the summer mornings and she usually sat outside in the garden and practiced all alone. It wasn't a popular café. It was small and had a large garden. The people that went there were usually older, and the owners worked at the farmer's market alongside Karma's parents every Saturday.

Her practice spot was privileged information that only a few Hester kids knew. Somehow the masses had yet to unearth her routines.

But Karma was never one to hide or shy away from anyone at all. If people did find out her routine she'd probably keep doing things exactly the same. Unless, of course, the environment got in the way of her practice and productivity.

Shane had gone there though, just to see her, just to try.

"You know me," Karma said awkwardly. As famous as she was, she still felt like a rejected nobody. All the comments in the world couldn't change the fact that she'd always hurt the one that she loved and she realized that now more than ever. She'd lost her love.

"Have you seen Amy?" Shane asked.

Karma's face somehow found a way to fall even more and she hugged herself. Did Shane really not know?

"We're kind of fighting right now?"

"That's weird," Shane said, scrunching his nose up and making a face.

Those girls couldn't even stand to separate for more than 24 hours when really bad things happened.

Shane knew they were fighting but he also knew that it wasn't a fight but more of Amy needing to deal with her head. The only reason he knew a thing was because of Lauren. Amy was hiding it. Karma wasn't ever part of his regular playdates. It was just a mess and an obvious one.

"Yeah… It is," Karma said. She still didn't know why Amy had been so cut-throat about cutting her off. At first she thought that maybe it had to do with Liam. But she'd broken up with Liam long before that song came alone. So, she thought, maybe the fame? Guys had come up to her at the mall and started talking about how hot she was in the videos, flirting with her and things. And in front of Amy no less. Amy had to deal with stuff like that. Karma didn't mind dealing with it herself but she couldn't take Amy having to see it and having to be there for it. Whenever she could, she rushed those encounters. Amy didn't deserve to have to stand by and watch Karma be ogled over all the time and gushed over by pretty much everyone. She got it a little but still… It just didn't make sense because it wasn't her fault.

It got to a certain point where Karma was even starting to feel weird. But she only felt weird because of Amy. She only felt weird because she could see a change in Amy's face, hear a change in her voice, and just know that Amy was getting upset by little things. Strange youtube comments would just kill Amy's mood. Karma would try and comfort her, hold her and smile, but it never world. That drove Amy away. The comforting did.

The more Amy pulled away, the more Karma wanted to hold her… Fix things…

She was having urges too, strange ones. And dreams…

And that was before the fight… Before the break.

Karma had been pushing Amy and up until now she hadn't even wondered if maybe some of that was intentional.

When Amy freaked out on her, Karma felt strange. Guilty strange. She loved Amy so much that she couldn't help but feel a little joy every time Amy wanted to steal her away and keep her to herself. She wanted Amy to keep her, wanted to see that fire in her.

And that was wrong. She knew that now.

Just like she knew that she had been looking for any reason to touch her, for months now.

Before the break. She'd wanted to touch her so often. These were the urges. These were the things.

Now that the distance had compiled, Karma had started to wonder if maybe that was the whole reason she'd been posting videos in the first place. When it started it was something she could do with Amy. She never expected for things to blow-up like they did. She wanted Amy to be with her, look at her, adore her, love her. She wanted to make Amy proud, give Amy something to be proud of. She wanted to be together with her again, normal with her again, happy with her again.

But the fame pushed Amy away from her. And she realized that now.

Part IV

Nighttime. Dark.

Karma sets up the camera Amy left behind.

She doesn't care how stupid she seems.

She's had a few.

Her parents made moonshine with their friends.

She's had enough.

Before this moment she'd been watching her own videos. In the ones with Amy around she was so much happier, visibly pleased with herself and her life.

Since then?

It was all sadness…

The songs since Amy? Most were pretty typical but then a few of the others slipped through the cracks. If Amy had been watching she would've stopped pushing her away a lot sooner and that's just a goddamn fact. The few that stuck out like sore thumbs? A sleepy slowed down version of She Loves You by The Beatles. Summertime Sadness, in which she prefaced the video with feeling down and "missing all those summer's with her best friend." A real shocker was a naturally adoring slow drawling replica of Spring Season Babe by Armand Margjeka, in which Karma dressed to the nines in rockabilly style because she knew if Amy saw it, it would just grab her and shake her in her chair, urge her to come home to her with the way she sang, "why, I'm your man," while looking… Like that… That song was all about not realizing that friends could be lovers and then waking up to that thought. And Karma was hot in that video. She was hungry for her then. But Amy never saw it. Shane and Lauren nearly died. They both confessed, it even turned them on.

There were songs in-between but then a riffy acoustic guitar version of Baby Come Back by Serena Ryder. A plea for just that, for just Amy, slipped through. A breathy, barely there, cover of Distance by Christina Perri, she was wearing thin now, wearing real thin. And then, a heartfelt, down on herself, cover of Love Love Love by Of Monsters and Men, in which you can see how wrong she felt about her choice up until then to not love. She even changed the eye color in the lyrics of that last one. It was a plain as day sign. A call to arms. They all were.

Everyone knew that Liam's eyes were chestnut golden brown and that Liam was male… If it had all been about Liam she wouldn't of had to change a damn thing about eye color and she'd probably be singing more songs directed towards boys. I mean, that was all just obvious.

If Amy had been watching she would've flinched at it all, instantly responded. But she hadn't been watching. She had absolutely no clue. She'd unsubscribed to Karma's channel. She'd blocked Karma out just to see if living without her could work and cause her any less conflicting pain.

How was she to know that somewhere, during the break, Karma had fully realized she was in love with her, in that way?

God, Karma wished she could just get to her. But she also knew that she was the one who had fucked up again. And she didn't deserve the right to be her one and her only.

All Amy knew was that it wasn't working. She was always hurting…

Part V

On this night, with the moonshine in her blood. On this night with the thunder in her eyes and the thirst for Amy eating her up inside.

Karma took to her guitar and used it in a way she hadn't quite yet done.

Most of her videos were thought-out and meticulously planned. In most of her videos she deliberated on the sound and worried about how she would look playing it, how she would come off to the throngs of haters just waiting to pounce. On this particular night, she wasn't aware of any of those things.

With moonshine in her and a pain so deep it could hardly ever just be cut out from the surface and thrown aside in one lump, Karma let her emotions rule her for once. She bared her soul and played a song that had been eating at her for days.

The song she sang explained it all.

She didn't dress up.

No make-up this time.

This wasn't about making a point or sending an S.O.S.

This was Karma at her end. Karma broken. Karma done with herself.

Part VI

Across town, alone in her room, Lauren reached for her phone and read the text.

Shane: KARMA'S CHANNEL! NOW!

Lauren flipped her laptop open and scrolled.

Making it big, she watched.

Halfway through, she started to cry once she realized Karma couldn't stop crying herself. It was such a beautiful song. Such a beautiful display of honesty and pain in its purest form.

Karma looked as though she was way past Four Five Seconds to wildin'.

She had tipped over the edge. Her cup runeth over.

Her threshold had been breached and she was spilling out of herself now, unable to contain the various things she felt. For instance: self-loathing. For instance: a burning desire to hurt herself. For instance: a need for Amy that was so strong it may as well be cutting her like a blade, constantly piercing her and laughing at her while she bled.

Karma Ashcroft had finally passed the point of no return. And anyone who was watching could see that now.

But Amy still wasn't watching…

Part VII

Amy's phone rang.

It was Shane.

She sighed heavily. He'd been on her about Karma for days now and she'd been ignoring him, trying still to ignore her.

"What?" She asked grumpily.

"I need you to get your head out of your ass and go to Karma's channel right now."

"Shane, we talked about this, I-"

"Just shut up and do it, Amy. This is not an option, it's an order."

"Fine," she groaned, angrily.

It had been a good run.

She tried it.

Ignoring her hadn't even helped. In fact, it may have only made things worse.

Nothing had been easier.

Nothing had been fun.

When she opened the tab on her screen and saw Karma's face, her heart sank.

God, she missed her.

God, she missed that face and that voice and that person. Her person. She felt her heart squeeze as if Karma had shrunk down miniature size, crawled inside of her chest and tried to hug her heart because she loved her that fucking much and needed her, fucking needed her right now.

"I… I know this channel has become pretty popular," Karma said, no joy in her voice. No happiness on her face. Amy noticed how normal Karma looked, but also how messy. She wasn't okay. She was nowhere near okay. And it didn't help at all that seeing Karma like that made Amy feel like she was in the room with her, just a step away. Karma looked that way with her. That was just Karma. If Karma was a wreck, Amy was there. At least… That used to be the true…

It surprised Amy. To see her, just her. After all that time.

"And I know that lately it's been pretty obvious that I'm really depressed," Karma swallowed, fighting back the tears that were obviously coming. "The truth is, I'm an idiot," she choked out barely as she talked to the camera as if it were a person. "I'm stupid… And slow.. And… I hurt someone.. I hurt her so much," she said, anger threatening to win out in her sad expression as she fought back her tears and wanted to cry at her own cracking voice. "I can't take it back. I can't change it…" She said, actually warring with herself inside in a way that Amy could plainly see. "I just… I love her… I'm in love with her," she said. "I've always been in love with her. Like, love love," she said. "Storybook love. Fairytale love. Epic heart-wrenching love." Karma let her eyes role up and scan the ceiling as she tried to breathe and be strong. She let out a little scoff and a small tortured smile. A confession. It was a confession. "I know she's not watching," she said. "And I'm obviously drunk," her eyebrows twitched at that. This video was all weakness and it killed Amy, just killed her. "But this is for her.. It's all for her and I can't stop thinking about her, missing her, wanting her… It's all her. Everything's her… And I just… I fucked up Amy…. I fucked up… Okay?" She stared at the camera extra long as if maybe doing so could just get Amy to notice her again.

As she wept, she started to play, the guitar singing out crisp and lifting her up if just for a moment.

She cleared her throat and began to sing.

The title of the video was "Breaking the Girl."

Amy watched, weeping. Happy tears. They were happy tears escaping her eyes. She hadn't expected anything like this.

She didn't even get halfway through the song. Karma had already said enough and Karma was crying, across town, in her room all alone. Amy couldn't stand more than a few bars before she shot up out of her chair, grabbed her jacket, and darted out of the room like she was late for something, late for everything in her world.

Lauren heard and jumped up to follow her.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

"Where do you think," Amy simply said. She was out the front door in less than 3 seconds, jacket on, no fucks in the world.

Fuck cars. Fuck driving.

As her feet sped up, she began to jog and then run, until she was sprinting, simply sprinting in the late summer humidity and haze.

Her panting was loud and her chest burned but she didn't care. She needed to go to her, needed to see her.

She burst into the Ashcroft house without asking and leapt up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The whole thing had been a fit of action.

Once inside Karma's room she was met with a surprised stare and what seemed an avalanche of tears.

"Amy?" Karma had said. But the tears painted her face and she looked tortured, she was so beyond repair tonight.

Amy moved to the bed and wrapped her up in her arms.

"I'm so sorry," Amy said. "I'm so sorry," she cried.

Her experiment had been cruel. A failure.

A torture to her best friend.

Karma cried into her, hanging onto her and loving her arms.

"I need you," Karma cried. Those words that Amy had long since banished as fact.

So many words could've been said but Karma chose those ones. They were the only words that mattered. More than I love you. More than I want you.

"I need you," that's what she had said as she clung to Amy, feeling taken by her again, taken care of.

"I'm sorry," Amy said again, apologizing for the distance. She hadn't factored in how much Karma depended on her and every waking day.

Karma buried her eyes in the crook of Amy's neck as she cried.

"I'm so sorry," Karma said back. "I'm so sorry."

"Shhhh," Amy tried, rubbing her back, holding her, trying to calm her down. "Don't be sorry," she said. She hated when Karma was sorry.

Amy soothed and Karma let herself be held by her. Without intent, she gazed up at her friend and noticed how sincere she always was. She was crying and she had run to her. She must've watched the video, Karma knew.

Hesitant but knowing she could, Karma took a shaky breath in and pressed her lips to Amy, kissing her. She'd been wanting to do it for a while now but Amy hadn't known.

Amy moaned into her mouth and felt as Karma's hands came up to hold at her face and ask her for more.

It wasn't like their kisses before.

This time they both needed it.

Unknowingly and without meaning to, Karma had left her camera on and it was recording. Later they'd cry with embarrassment when they'd re-watch it together, the way they fell into each other's nervous arms and began to cry and eventually kiss. That heat taking over them. A whole world ahead of them. A whole world where they'd be together again.

Karma's next video would be a happy one.

And Amy's life would no longer involve feeling unimportant or pushed aside by Karma's fame.

When Amy finally did watch all the video's she'd cry with how foolish she'd been, shutting her out, and how guilty she felt. But they both knew that nothing would be the same had Amy not initially done that. They needed the time apart to recognize what was really there.

Eventually, it'd be a nice story but right now the wounds were still fresh. All they could do was heal together, take things one day at a time, mend each other little-by-little with careful care and gentle words.

"You should've said something," Amy said, feeling foolish. She knew she would never have heard her.

"I tried," Karma laughed, tears falling out of her.

She stared up at Amy, adoring her, feeling scared. More than anything she just wanted to kiss her again…

Twisting and turning, your feelings are burning, you're breaking the girl…


End file.
